


Breath After Breath

by CrabOfDoom



Series: Breath After Breath [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Angst, Dismemberment, Fix-It, M/M, Near-Death Experience, Veer from Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 12:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10639878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrabOfDoom/pseuds/CrabOfDoom
Summary: Talking to the Gods is in the Nox Fleuret blood. Whether the Gods like it, or not.Alternate lyrics for Chapter 13, Verse 2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There's backstory kinda glossed over here, especially with Safay, it's just that not of it's been written down as yet. It will be, eventually, and I do already have a ficlet about he and Ravus being a thing. Still, I needed changes to Ch13V2. NEEDED. I demand to see the manager. This is Not Allowed.
> 
> \---------  
> From where I stand, the truth isn't black and white  
> Alone, we live and die, we love and fight  
> Breath after breath, we carry this mortal coil

The innards of the Zegnautus Keep, in all its steel beams and iron piping, had always been a foul and unnerving contradiction. The metal quickly sank any heat it absorbed into the frigid Nifl skies without, but never seemed to completely remove the heat from the steam escaping from virtually every seam in the pipes. The Keep, or so it felt, was the entire reason the phrase "cold sweat" had been coined.

The humid air and gelid surfaces made dying on a landing by the central elevator almost as unpleasant as the reason the High Commander found himself in that very predicament. The leather of his uniform only insulated him from so much.

In his intense exhaustion, and the swell of pain and darkness and cold around him, Ravus forced his thoughts to remain occupied, and so, forced himself to remain conscious.

The pain was loud enough that ignoring it was out of the question. The fall from the emperor's throne room felt to have broken something in his right shoulder, and at the very least had fractured something else in either his right leg or hip. Strange, that they'd hurt far more when he'd first tried to stand again, than they did at that moment. Perhaps he was simply growing used to it. Perhaps shock was setting in. Not that shock didn't have every reason to be barging in where it wasn't needed.

Izunia. It was all so clear, as soon as Ravus had seen the red-tinted blade strike out at him; as soon as he was falling once more onto fresh wounds. What Ravus had thought, had believed was the prince of Lucis was all an illusion.

The cautious gait approaching the High Commander, the cagey regard, the attack itself, the very idea of using a word like 'sycophancy'... language Noctis had likely never heard of before, much less used so casually... none of that was within Noctis' character, as far as Ravus had ever seen. If Ravus hadn't been reeling from the pain, hadn't been so depleted from using Regis' damned sword, hadn't been so ready to just be _done_ with the House of Nox Fleuret's duty to the House of Lucis, he would have noticed Ardyn's deception.

Noticed, certainly--he'd been exposed to the man-shaped sack of slime's mannerisms for twelve years now--but could Ravus, practically, have done anything differently, to save himself? In truth, he doubted it. Regis' sword seemed intent on consuming every ounce of Ravus' strength, his very life force, as he fought off the daemons in Iedolas' throne room. No, Ravus couldn't have put up much of a fight against Ardyn's strike, even if he'd seen it coming as soon as the false prince entered Ravus' line of sight. From the speed of Ardyn's blade, Ravus had to admit to himself that his injuries wouldn't have allowed him to keep up any meaningful defense. Fighting for one's life often brought out reserves and fortitude that one never expects to find within themselves, but after twelve years as a Nifl soldier, there was little that Ravus didn't know about his own limits. He'd surely pushed them hard enough, in all that time.

The "if onlys" weren't just impotent to the lost prince of Tenebrae; they were wrong. Knowing then would have changed nothing.

Knowing now? That was a pain of an entirely different nature. It meant knowing that Ravus' oath to fulfill his sister's duty on her behalf had fallen on deaf ears. It meant knowing that the last words spoken by the last of the Oracles _weren't_ spoken to the True King. It meant knowing he would die long before Noctis could possibly find his way into the Keep, let alone find Ravus' corpse and Regis' sword. Vows and promises broken. Prophecies that shredded so many lives in their wake, only to ultimately wither and die as hollow words, as the world's flora certainly would once the sun no longer rose to sustain them. Ravus had cast off all hope of ever being welcomed home by the people of Tenebrae, for becoming a weapon of the enemy that had invaded them. He'd done it in the hopes of destroying the Gods before they could destroy his sister, so that their people would have their beloved Oracle, into Luna's old age. Only, Leviathan had killed that mission when she killed Luna. Thus, Ravus' betrayal of Tenebrae was, in the end, all for nothing. His sacrifices for Luna's protection, all for nothing. His last chance to finish her mission and do their family's fated part to save the world, all for nothing.

_Ravus_

The blackness that oozed over his consciousness, that lazily gummed up his thoughts more and more with the passing of each fading heartbeat, seemed to cease and hold steady with the call of his name. Droplets touched to his face; few at first, and then pinging softly from his gaunt face in greater frequency. No... he could've sworn it was far more like an urgency.

Ravus found the will to open his eyes, without so much as a thought to the motion. Above him was no trace of the Keep, but the dim blue-violet of a stormy Tenebrae sky. The rain on the grass and flowers of the fields was a veritable symphony from his memories. If it was now to be his dirge, he couldn't have chosen a melody he'd have wanted more to hear. The Tenebrae rain was never gloomy nor grim. Not to him. It fed the oceans and rivers. It carved the valleys where his people had built the home of his family. Of the Oracles. The rain allowed the trees and wildflowers to thrive and scent the entire world of a young boy who thought his homeland made up all of Eos. The thunder and lighting taught him that dangerous, even deadly things could hold a special beauty of their own; power and strength that were to be respected, but never feared. How well that lesson would serve him, later in life.

The lost prince sat up, stood up, as though his height, alone would bring him close enough to the rolling clouds to touch one. Ravus looked about himself, to the trees and flowers and tall grasses that were steeped in so much spilled time and not enough reverence. Never enough. He looked again to the skies, and the winds picked up. The tops of the trees swayed and rustled. The wind, itself, blew through columns and covered walkways of Tenebrae behind him, carved from the stone of the cliffs and canyons and giving off a soft, haunting music almost like reed chimes. A distant howl between a siren's song and banshee's wail raced through the meadow's plain amid the waves blown through the grass.

_Ravus_

He stood, unmoving at its call, and allowed the rain to trail down his face in the stead of tears that had never fallen, but that he was presently far too tired to finally summon. The wind refused to die down and whipped the long panels of his uniform coat out before him like banners on a warfield of old. Ravus never faltered in the gale, even as the steady force of the wind blew the small winged shield from his armband, and sent it hurtling into the distance and out of sight. The band, itself followed, as did the metal darts adorning the coat's front, and soon, the billowing panels, one by one. The coat's sleeves and bodice fell away in pieces, like the shedding of old skins. Ravus stood in the storm, bared to the elements, with only his armored boots, the truncated shoulder of his destroyed magitek left arm, his thick interlinked belt, and the violet-tipped leather underskirt that bore the family crest of the House of Nox Fleuret.

A swift jerk of his wrist ripped the panel free from where it had caught on his belt. Ravus held it high by a corner, to watch it ripple and lash in the wind, as it should have from the exterior halls of the home of the Oracles. He considered letting it go, to flutter off with everything else that had been stripped from him. It was a life that had never embraced him, had never wanted him. Wasn't it? Years of training--however little fruit his lessons bore--to become the next Oracle after his mother, to become a king, and to so soon become unnecessary, with the birth of a sister whom the Gods favored more. The shift in his training to then be her defender, their people's defender, only to have their home invaded, his birthright ripped away, before he was prepared to mount any meaningful resistance. His entire world, burned and taken from him, while he was too wracked with grief and horror over watching with his own eyes as his mother sacrificed herself to save him.

If not for him, she'd not have died. She and Luna could have run to escape with Regis. Tenebrae might still have fallen to Niflheim, but the Oracles wouldn't be on the verge of extinction. Or, perhaps they _were_ extinct by now, and this fitting stage of boundless loss was a hell befitting Gods who reveled in tormenting their believers. Ravus could still feel the rain on his face, but all else merely felt numb. From cold, from death--was there a difference here? He closes his eyes, and let go of the final banner of his past.

_Ravus_

And immediately lurched forward to grasp onto it again, with a white-knuckled fist, by the barest touch of its hem. Ravus pulled the cloth to his chest, and hung his head.

This wasn't fair. This wasn't _right_. The Nox Fleuret bloodline--hell, the Lucis Caelums, as well--had done everything the Six had ever demanded of them. In his own family's right, even to their own destruction. Luna would be alive, if the Gods' prophesies hadn't been so hellbent on being a catastrophic wrecking ball. Their rules were so arbitrary, so ungrateful, so cruel, and to what purpose? Who was served by so much senseless death? The Gods cared not a lick for how many lives their games ruined and ended.

Senseless. That was an apt word for the whims of the Six. A mortal king would have the power to rid their star of its scourge, to bring light back to the world, but not the Gods, themselves? What manner of fuckery was that? And if that were true... did that not make the the King of Light's power one greater than that of the Gods? Did the Astrals even realize that they were orchestrating their own obsolescence? Their own demise?

But... who would ever tell them? The bloodline of the Oracles had been comprised of only three. Until Ardyn's ambush in the Keep, it was down to one. Perhaps Ravus' time was running out, perhaps it already had, but he was still conscious, still lucid, within whatever realm this was. There was no other Oracle to be had, but he. And they'd just passively allow a pile of trash in antiquated clothing to rend away from them a public figure so useful? Unless the Gods would prefer to give back his sister, it was he they would have to deal with as their mortal envoy. And oh, was he of no mind to offer an ounce of reverence, any time soon.

The lost prince gave the banner a swing over his left shoulder, in an effort to provide a small bit of cover from the continuing storm. It came to rest on the skin between his neck and the cumbersome plate that capped the top of his magitek limb, wrapped around his shoulders, and within the warped reality he found himself standing amid, crossed atop the right side of his chest as a now full and flowing cloak of white. Even at Ravus' formidable height, the separate, dagger-like tips of violet trim at the cloth's bottom edge lay flat and fanned on the tall grass surrounding him. Ravus didn't question the change, and instead clutched closed the sides of the cloak that draped over his bared chest with his single hand. The rain and isolation became mere background to the strange comfort in a moment's chance to feel _regal_ once more.

His hand's grip tightened. A sensation of fire coursed through his palm and fingers, but entirely unlike the magic that had taken his arm. This was a heat like hot tea, just safe enough to drink; a fresh bath, hot enough to steam, and redden the skin. That same warmth from his hand intensified quickly. No, it wasn't the agony of the ring's fire at all, but familiar, soothing embers. Ravus pulled his hand away to look at it. He found a soft, golden glow of light, and brighter sparks such as Luna's hands gave off whenever she healed another with her touch.

A broad wrinkle of slack in the cloak at the back of Ravus' neck fluttered in a more intense gust of the steady winds. Its volume grew as it rippled, and shortly, a white hood blew forward to cover Ravus' rain-soaked hair. It didn't block his view of his hand's newfound light, but it did limit him from seeing anything more of a figure suddenly standing a distance before him, but the icy, pale blue skin of bare feminine feet. The lost prince didn't feel inclined to look at any more of her.

"You've chosen to live, Gray One?" Shiva asked.

"Have I?" Ravus questioned in return, his voice quiet amid the din of the storm. "I wasn't aware that it was for me to decide."

"The last of the Oracles' blood has died," Shiva said, solemnly. "What is done in the span of the next breath after your last, is not bound by any duty."

"And what _of_ that duty?" Ravus pressed. "My bloodline's call to aid the True King dies with me? Unfulfilled, as the world sinks forever into darkness?"

"No," Shiva stated. "It _has_ been fulfilled, Gray One."

Ravus lifted his gaze in her direction, although the hood's overhang still kept her from his view. "How? That was not Noctis. My duty in Luna's stead was not completed."

"In you physical weakness," Shiva said, "your only failure was in appreciating your own fortitude. The false limb that was cut from you; it held to the sword's hilt, after you fell to the blow. The True King did find the Sword of the Father, and the false limb fell away only after he claimed it. The world's fate is now between the True King and the Usurper. The Oracle's duty is complete."

The lost prince drew a deep sigh, his breath misting in the rain.

"Be that as it may, I've yet to understand how I am to choose to live, if I've already died," Ravus said.

"Is that what you wish?" Shiva asked, "To live?"

Ravus stayed silent in thought through a long howl in the wind. It was hardly a straightforward question. Death offered a chance to be reunited with his entire family. It held the promise of being the final loss he'd ever have to endure. An end to pain. At the present time, he could even bow out of the living realm, having finally proven himself worthy of his own birth; having finally accomplished something that would make a difference in the world. Death had its charms. And yet.

"Yes, it is," Ravus answered to the Glacian. "I made my peace with death years ago, in the hopes that I would be the Nox Fleuret to fall to prophecy, and Lunafreya could retain her life and her future. But... before the invasion of Tenebrae... I assumed there would be a future for the both of us. Luna would one day be queen, as our mother before her, and I... I don't know, honestly. An adviser, a High Commander of our _own_ army, a voice to her for our people, a simple father. Maybe none of it. Maybe all of it. I didn't know. I don't know, now. But there would have been a place for me, somewhere. And I wanted to find it. I still do."

Ravus straightened to face her, albeit without moving his hood out of the way. The wistfulness in his words faded as resolve took over.

"In any event," he said, "this is _not_ how I choose to die. Not while some overconfident back-alley magician believes that he convinced my last thoughts that I'd failed my family and had my trust betrayed. Not lying in my prison, where my body will no doubt be treated with all the respect of being cast out with the refuse. Not while Eos still has need of leaders in its rise against Adlercapt, in its defense against the daemons and the growing night. Not while Tenebrae cannot breathe freely. My people don't have to forgive me, don't have to follow me, but I _will_ see them returned to their independence. If it is yet my fate to die a soldier and not a king, so be it, but I will not be _wasted_."

"Would you be the Oracle, in Lunafreya's place?" Shiva asked. It sounded far more like a bargain than a question.

"I would be the mortal envoy of the Gods," Ravus agreed. "I would heal as I can, be a conduit between realms. But know this: you Six have done nothing but taken from me; I freely give you _nothing_. I will be servant to no one, any longer. Not even the Astrals."

"You speak boldly, for a mortal so close to oblivion," Shiva said, her voice appropriately icy. Her smirk went unseen, but the lost prince could nevertheless tell it was there.

_Ravus_

The call on the wind again caught his ear. Ravus turned his head to better listen for it, although there seemed to be no clear direction from which it came.

"That hasn't been you," he noted aloud to the Glacian.

"No, Child of the Shadowed Kingdom," Shiva confirmed.

He strained his ears as the wind rose again. It wasn't his sister, wasn't his mother... He couldn't be certain it was a woman's voice at all. Ravus had been told many times that he sounded just like his late father, and the voice on the wind was no match for his own echo. Some of the wails weren't even words, but merely the cries of anguish they seemed.

"Then... who...?"

_RAVUS_

_...ease, stop this..._

Wait, there were two?

_...t's too late..._

Three?!

_He's gone. I'm sorry._

_NO_

He felt his heart constrict tightly in his chest. "But... who's left who'd ever mourn for me?"

_There's nothing more you can do._

_RAVUS_

"Your time is up, Grey One," Shiva announced. "If your choice is life, then go to them. Follow the storm back to where you belong. If you have reason yet to live, then rise once more, and take your place as Oracle."

Ravus closed his eyes, and as if he'd become one with the fabric of his cloak, lifted from the ground of the sylleblossom meadow and blew away on the gale.

\---------------

The spiral of sparks from the phoenix down still flurried above his palm, where another's hands held it aloft above his body. A breath, deep and almost painfully dry, drew in through Ravus' mouth to refill his lungs. A voice ragged with grief cried out above him, startled.

"What's happened?" asked a voice with a familiar accent, a short distance to his right. "Did it actually work?"

"Holy shit," remarked a much deeper one. "I think so."

"Ravus," breathed the voice directly above him, gone hoarse from calling his name.

Warm drops fell to his cheek and quickly cooled. Ravus forced open his eyes, to find a long heart-shaped face, framed by dark silver hair pulled back in a long braid. Sea green eyes that seemed to glow in the landing's dim light should have been unmistakable, but the raw fear and hope within them, the glinting trails of tears coming from them looked so alien.

"Safay?" Ravus whispered.

He'd barely finished the name before his lips were overtaken by a hard, desperate kiss that overflowed with naked relief. His eyes went wide, then closed once more as he reveled in the warmth. Deciding to live had just gotten infinitely better than Ravus had expected.

The deeper voice's owner cleared his throat. "Er, hey..."

Safay broke from the kiss to look up at the man. Ravus could see the soldier's arm rise to reach for something offered to him, but was disinclined to move and risk reawakening any pain that had gone dormant. Safay's attention returned to Ravus with a short, thin cylinder in the imperial soldier's hand. An elixir. It would be a race against time to be out of the Keep and into shelter before the pain reliever wore off, but it, along with the down's own temporary boost of fortitude, would at least make movement possible again. Safay took Ravus' hand, placed the tube in his palm, and closed his fingers around it. The cylinder burst in a spark of light, and within a couple of seconds, the volume on Ravus' pain was dialed back from a twelve to a five.

Ravus immediately, if slowly, forced himself upright. It wasn't pleasant, but neither was it going to make him wish he'd chosen to remain dead. His footing faltered as he trusted his balance to a heavy prosthetic arm he'd only recently gotten used to, that was no longer there. The stumble was a blessedly short moment, but nevertheless prompted Safay to draw Ravus tightly to his chest, to keep him on his feet. Anywhere else, it was a position in which Ravus would've much preferred to linger. Perhaps he had, for just a bit too long.

"You two really need to find a room," the deep voice mumbled, although it didn't try very hard to remain unheard. Ravus turned towards the sound, to finally get a look at his good Samaritans. His brows knit in confusion.

"Amicitia?"

Gladiolus only smirked in answer, then stooped quickly to retrieve the severed mechanical arm lying on the landing floor. To the rear of his right, Noctis' adviser seemed content to stay where he was was. Gladiolus stepped closer to the intertwined pair as he handed the arm over to Safay.

"If you want to try to get that thing fixed," he offered, his voice low and quiet, "there's a place called Hammerhead, between Lucil and Duscae. Good mechanics. Good people. Tell 'em you know us."

Safay nodded, even as Ravus was still trying to come to grips with what was happening. Why would Amicitia, of all people, be willing to not only help revive him, but pass on information that might give Ravus his full strength back? The King's Shield would so readily assist a Nifl officer? Or--or was that no longer how Gladiolus defined him?

"Thank you," Safay returned to the bodyguard in earnest.

"Yeah, well...," Gladiolus said, with a small, awkward rub of his neck. "Go on, get him out of here, before Ardyn's attention turns away from Noct. We've got more friends to find."

Gladiolus gave Ravus' right shoulder a solid clap before turning away to leave with the adviser. The bodyguard plainly didn't put all of his muscle into it, but in Ravus' present condition, it was enough to smart. Ah, yes, that approached relations closer to those that the High Commander would have expected. Safay turned their paths in the opposite direction from the Lucians, to cross the catwalk back to the level's outer perimeter mezzanine. Ravus could tell the soldier was anxious to make haste, yet was keeping his own pace slow until Ravus' body worked through the pain in his joints like grinding the rust on a hinge against itself until it moved freely again. The stiffness eased just a little more with every few seconds.

Safay followed the perimeter wall around until they came to a freight elevator, one typically unused by anyone but service personnel and crates of supplies. The odds anyone from Iedolas' court would stop it between levels were slim. Safay held his right wrist up to a glass field on the control panel. The door opened an eternal half a minute later.

"How do we get out, undetected?" Ravus asked, once the doors had closed with the pair of them inside. He kept his voice barely above a whisper. The empire was good at bugging even the least likely areas; no reason to help them out by naively assuming anywhere was safe. "A stolen airship would not be difficult to track, and hell to hide, once landed."

Safay kept watch on the level numbers, and only nodded.

"It doesn't seem wise to simply walk out the front doors, either," Ravus continued. He, too, looked to the display, as it slowed and finally stopped on one of the lowest levels. "Isn't this one of the MT transport bays?"

"Yeah," Safay confirmed.

"Isn't it going to _contain_ MTs?" Ravus asked, concerned.

"Not after the way I left it, coming in."

Despite the confidence in his words, Safay held his left hand out from his side, and from a soft glow of red light, summoned a long, black-bladed okatana. The doors opened to silence in the bay, aside of the occasional spit of sparks from a severed power conduit. Ravus kept behind the soldier, taking in the sight of about a dozen MTs, scattered across the bay's floor. In quite a literal manner. Safay was less of a stabber, and much more of a slicer. In light of his day's events, as well as the widely-dispersed body parts, Ravus winced a little at the thought.

There didn't appear to be any order given yet to investigate a lapse in communications with the bay, nor to replenish the number of troops. The work of the severed wires? Possibly. Ravus had never had much interest in wires and circuitry, had always figured he'd have some form of adviser or assistant at hand, who did. He supposed he'd have to change that in the future, at least enough to know what to pull to shut things down.

Safay moved slowly, stayed close to the bay's wall, and motioned for Ravus to follow and do the same.

A profoundly unpleasant, dark chuckle echoed in the bay. Both froze where they stood.

Ardyn.

Safay's eyesight was usually exceptional in less then optimal light, yet his gaze darted around for any sign of movement as though he were having no success. He retreated a couple of slow steps, to move himself more fully in front of Ravus. Neither action was a good portent.

_"You really are helpless, without your friends babysitting you..."_

"What...?" both whispered to each other, at once.

_"I have grave doubts about your friends..."_

Ravus paused to examine the sound. There was an echo, but it was all wrong. Too flat. Too loud. He heaved a warm sigh of relief against the back of Safay's neck.

"The comm system," he said, as he noticed his protector had allowed himself to breathe again. "It's coming from elsewhere."

"Not funny," Safay groaned quietly. He reached his right hand back to grip Ravus', and squeezed. Ravus looked down to the contact. His eyes alone drifted back up to the soldier. There was apparently much to be discussed, between them. Of course, getting out of a fortress hovering miles above the ground had to occur, first.

"He's still trained on Noctis," Ravus said. "That could buy a moment to move quickly, but to what end?"

"Can you run?" Safay asked.

"I suspect," Ravus nodded. "However, my speed may remain to be seen."

"As long as you don't fall, we'll be fine," Safay said. "I can get us out of the Keep, and out of Gralea. I don't feel it's safe to say more, until we've done that. You have to trust me, Ravus."

The lost prince's mind went back to tears shed over his death, by a soldier who wept for no one, not even himself, and a kiss of joy that Ravus was alive.

"I do," Ravus said. The soldier turned to him with a cautious smile.

"I'm sorry, but..." Safay gently pressed the severed magitek arm to Ravus' stomach, where the High Commander's hand could easily reach it. "Ravus, you need to hold onto this, so I can hold onto you."

Ravus pulled an uneasy face, much as Safay had expected. His smile turned more apologetic, before if faded as the soldier in Safay again took over.

"Trust me," Safay repeated. "We run for the bay door. I need room to swing my arm; try to stay a length behind. The air pressure's gonna change when I cut through. All you worry about is to keep standing, and don't drop your arm. Understood?"

Ravus couldn't help an amused smirk, in spite of having obvious questions about what happened outside of that door. "Yes, _sir_."

Hesitation suggested that Safay's trust in Ravus' health wasn't as absolute, but he nevertheless turned away to make a break for the door. Ravus followed at a pace slow enough to worry himself, as he watch Safay take a long lead. He managed to push through the aches and bruises and improve his speed, just barely, with each stride.

The soldier's sword took on a glow as he neared his target. Safay lashed out once before he reached it and sent a sharp, arching beam of magic slicing through the thick metal, at its corner. As he came close enough to land a physical strike, his blade came down from the opposite direction. The pieces rattled from the vacuum of the lower air pressure outside, and soon blew outward to leave a makeshift escape hatch. The sword vanished from his hand. Safay turned back to Ravus, to mark his progress. The prince was still upright and giving his attempted sprint his all.

Safay held his arms out wide to give him a goal line. Ravus headed for it and collided with Safay's chest. At the impact, Safay wrapped his arms around Ravus, turned for the large hole, and jumped out into the high altitude's frigid air.

Outside of the Keep, there was no waiting getaway driver. No airships at all. What in the name of the Six had Ravus agreed to?! A loud expletive left his lips, silent as the wind rushed past their falling forms.

The soldier shifted Ravus' mass toward his left shoulder, tightened his arms around the prince's waist, and closed his eyes tightly in concentration. A liquid like thick, drying ink rolled from Safay's tear ducts, and streaked back towards his ears. A bulge by his right shoulder blade began building under the leather of his coat, and found an unmended seam that it had ripped open before. A heavy plume of black spilled out into the rushing air, grew broad and long, until at last, Safay flexed his shoulder's muscles, and the plume took its shape of a massive hawk's wing.

"What the fuck?!" Ravus shouted, once more to no audible avail.

One wing wasn't much good for staying aloft, but it could at least turn their fall into a controlled glide. The wing changed its arc and the pair sped up drastically on a guided trajectory to pass Gralea's southern border.

\---------------

Within the Keep's main control room, a small, flashing red light served as an alert that something was amiss in one of the transport bays. Ardyn took his gaze away from watching Noctis attempt to hack his way past a rather large and angry obstacle, to see what the unwelcome intrusion was about.

There was a rough, black hole on the corner of the bay door where a rough, black hole ought not to be. Too clean for a blast. No soot left behind. Had to be a blade, if an awfully long one. Further inspection showed that what seemed to be debris was the dismembered parts of several MTs.

Ardyn turned to a video feed from outside of the bay. Nothing was there. No ships, no parachutes. Just a spec of a bird receding into the distance. At _this_ altitude? He peered closer.

A bird with one wing.

"What. The fuck."

Suspicion mounted, and Ardyn gave each video monitor a fast examination. Nothing seemed out of sorts. Except...

On a lower level, by the central elevator. The Sword of the Father was gone, but he knew why it wasn't there. It was, however, not the only thing missing. There was one less body. That should not have been. He immediately knew which it was, and it told him who'd taken it.

"Roth," Ardyn growled, through gritted teeth. "Very disappointed in you, boy."

There was no sense in giving chase, nor even sending out a unit to follow. Very soon, Ardyn would have time to find and chastise the thief, properly and personally. Years, if he needed them. He returned to overseeing Noctis' progress against the monstrous daemon, and snarled.

"I. Wasn't. Through. With. That. Puppet. Yet."

\---------------


End file.
